If there are errors, then blame Ezra.
Well, that is the specific meaning of the doctrine of inerrancy - that the original manuscripts (the autographs) are God-breathed and without error. Inerrancy has nothing to do with misunderstandings. For that, the doctrine of clarity comes in - that the Bible is perfectly clear and able to be understood on its own. One definition - “that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it.”
As for the originals, nope, there are none. But, as for the New Testament, there are tens of thousands of copies and fragments. Literary scholars look at those the same way they do those of Homer, Aristotle, anyone else - how many copies do we have that we can compare, what’s their quality and how long was the span of time from the time of the original writing until the copies we have.
As I understand it, the New Testament documents are without peer in the ancient world in regard to quantity and time span, and the Old Testament copies have a high standing due to the diligence of the professional scribes whose duty it was to copy them. In fact, the OT copies scholars were using (up until the last half century) were quite recent by comparison but the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls showed that the ‘recent’ copies were the same.
Hope that helps some…
Those who fight the ignorance of the inerrancy doctrine don’t quibble over these minor types of “errors”… because they are understandable.
It is the errors in statements of fact that make the inerrancy doctrine indefensible. “Facts” such as that rabbits chew their cud (what?!), or the “fact” that in one gospel Mary Magdelene told the disciples that Jesus’ body was stolen, but in another she supposedly saw Jesus at the site of the tomb.
These errors are errors, period.
Just as a reference point,
Bruce Metzger Ph.D. of Princetong Theological Seminary points out that Homer’s Iliad is second to the Bible in number of manuscripts. It comes in with about 650 greek manuscripts. The Bible has 5,664 greek, about 8,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts, and another 8,000 or so from Ethiopic, Slavic, and Armenian sources. So there are at least 21,000 manuscripts of the Bible.
Most of Homer’s manuscripts come from the second or third century a.d. He wrote his epic somewhere around 800 B.C. So you have a long time gap between the sources. The early copies of Mark are from about 40 A.D., so that makes them subject to critics who would have lived during Jesus’ lifetime.
I go along with Polycarp in rejecting the premise of the OP, so I am not prepared to tackle one side or the other of this discussion, however, the following is not accurate:
What we actually have is a tiny fragment of manuscript with some partial words that (if you hold it up just so and squint at it in just the right way) some people identify as having several of the words that can be found in the Gospel of Mark in more or less the correct order (but only if we change a couple of letters as “misspellings” and ignore a missing phrase). Book review of recent story of Qumran fragment 7Q5, identified with Mark 6:52. (Contrast this to P[sup]48[/sup], the papyrus fragment of John’s Gospel dating to around 125, in which we have the nearly complete text of three verses in agreement with later manuscripts.)
There is nothing resembling consensus that the words of the “Markan” fragment are even those that are purported for it and the overwhelming majority of scholars date Mark’s Gospel to a period 20 years later than the fragment appears.
The “21,000” manuscripts of the bible can also be misleading, as the overwhelming majority of those are translations or copies made after the fifth century. (We do have versions or translations dating to the second century that can be used to cross-reference the accuracy of the eventual texts, but it is not a matter of 21,000 texts dating (back to) to 40 C.E.)
Wow, Moejuck. You make it sound like there are just all kinds of manuscripts laying around from 40 A.D., which, as Tom has pointed out, is far from being the case.
Either you are seriously misinformed, or you are being intentionally midleading. I trust it is the former.
I never indicated that the 21,000 manuscripts were from 40 A.D.
Forgive me if I was not clear in my explanation. The point was to show that there is overwhelming manuscript evidence for the New Testament, and that much of that evidence can be traced to within one generation of the death of Christ. This makes the New Testament a very historically reliable document. I was simply offering a comparison between the documented evidence of the New Testament and another historical document.
I am neither seriously misinformed or misleading. You can twist my words however you wish RoundGuy. I only stated that Mark had been traced to 40 A.D. and Tomndebb has given a clear indication of what this evidence amounts to.
Thank you TomnDebb for clarifying the evidence on Mark.
I apologize for jumping down your throat on this, but this kind of misinformation has to be confronted anywhere it raises its ugly head. You said: “The early copies of Mark are from 40 A.D.” We are talking about a friggin’ fragment here (and a very questionable one at that). You’re talking about “copies” in your post. What is a reasonable person supposed to think?
I will attempt to be kinder in my initial reactions, if you will attempt to choose your words more carefully.
Oh! Yes, okay, I grok. I was confused as to what was being argued per se and what was being defended. You’re right, I was wrong, and I apologize.
Strict “all or nothing” inerrancy isn’t necessarily dumb, especially if one begins with the faith-founded idea that the “author of the universe” is the author of the holy book. Now, it is a rather extreme viewpoint, and one I can’t feel comfortable with…but it’s unfair to call it “dumb.”
(And if anyone ever says, “No one ever changes their mind in a religious discussion,” point 'em to me!)
Trinopus
I agree, and apologize for my poor use of words.
Raised a Christian, I’ve never heard of the inerrancy of the Bible. I have heard of the infallibility of papal decree, but these are specific decrees of the pope, not everything he says. And that’s just the Catholic faith, not all Christianity. Are you mixing up the two concepts, or am I just another ignint atheist?
Well, I will not generalize your ignorance, but biblical inerrancy is a big part of many Christian denominations. As with many other terms, the word tends to carry more than one meaning.
For example, the Catholic Church (among several other groups) inerrancy means that the totality of Scripture, carefully considered, is free of any error regarding the plan of salvation, although there may be any number of details in the text that are found to be scientifically or historically inaccurate or mutually contradictory.
The Protestant Fundamentalist Movement that arose at the beginning of the 20th century has taken the position that the Bible is literally accurate in regards to any text that is not poetic or deliberately symbolic in nature. When discussions pop up with no qualifier on the word inerrancy, the topic is usually the literal accuracy of the bible. If you grew up surrounded by Catholics, Lutherans who did not belong to the Missouri or Wisconsin Synods, or any of several other groups, you may not have encountered the term or the concept, since they do far less preaching on the topic.
Well, we are all ignorant of something, perhaps this is your one blemish.
Biblical inerrancy and papal infallibility are two very different issues. Biblical inerrancy is a common doctrine in a great many Protestant denominations and “traditional” Christian faiths. Papal infallibility is a strictly Catholic doctrine.
Biblical inerrancy is the belief that every word of the Protestant Bible, in the original manuscripts, was inspired by God and “God-Breathed”. There are no errors. None. It is perfect in every way.
This, of course, is ludicrous.
With regard to your second paragraph, tom~, I must record a quibble. The original Fundamentalists meant, like the Catholic Church, doctrinal inerrancy, and it was only in our lifetimes that the broader meaning of inerrancy took hold with more than a few fringe folks. Even today “inerrancy” in the older definition is still a precious concept to more than a few Christian groups and individuals, including, IIRC, two posters I greatly respect: Duck Duck Goose and Mean Girl.
Which would certainly be true of a number of Fundamentalist Christians for whom I have a great deal of respect such as the long-absent and lamented SoxFan59 and a few others.
I thought the concept of inerrancy was more than just accurate transcriptions. Perfect copies of a paper stating that 2+2=5 are still in error, though accurate. The real issue with the Bible is that many things are historically incorrect or unsupported, not that it was copied incorrectly. No one suggests that “in the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth” is a typo for “in the beginning, there was a Big Bang” after all.
It’s also my understanding that believing in the inerrancy of Scripture is also quite rare outside the United States. Even in my neck of the northeastern U.S., it isn’t all that common.